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This is an archive article published on August 7, 1999

Periscope on Pakistan

Kapil Dev, a Shiv Sena thugFRONTIER POST: Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, presently mired in controversy for calling an end to his country's ...

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Kapil Dev, a Shiv Sena thug

FRONTIER POST: Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, presently mired in controversy for calling an end to his country8217;s cricketing ties with Pakistan, has confessed it is wrong for sportsmen to indulge in politics.

8220;My call8221; he says, 8220;was based on what I saw had happened to Indian soldiers fighting militants in Kargil.8221; Fine, but where has his heart been sleeping all these past 10 years when the Indian soldiers have been slaughtering, torturing, maiming and raping the Kashmiris with abandon in the territory? He never has issued a call for mercy on them. Are those beleaguered, tormented Kashmiri women, men and children made of plastic and clay, and not of flesh and bones?

This man, indeed, stinks and stinks unbearably foul. He can8217;t be a sportsman, by his own definition. He could only be a butcher8217;s boy. He can have no place among the exalted gallery of sportsmen. He can have a place only among the Shiv Sena thugs of Bal Thackeray.

Kargil will be flogged inpolls

NAWAI WAQT: The leaders of many non-BJP parties in India have been unrelenting in their criticism of what they regard as Vajpayee government8217;s 8220;failure to defend India8217;s borders,8221; allowing them to be violated by the mujahideen. Pakistan should have no doubt that the Kargil issue will be widely exploited in India8217;s forthcoming elections.

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi in fact fired one of the first salvos of her party8217;s election campaign while addressing a rally in Lucknow. UP is a stronghold of the BJP but Ms Gandhi repeatedly attacked the Vajpayee government for having sacfificed the lives of hundreds of Indian soldiers by not being able to anticipate the situation in Kargil in fact a day earlier in another rally, she spoke of thousands of soldiers having been killed but then it was pointed out to her that the Indian Army had not admitted to its casualties being in the order of thousands.

A prominent Indian columnist derisively criticised Sonia Gandhi for 8220;making political hay evenwhen the sun doesn8217;t shine8221; by visiting wounded soldiers in hospitals and in proper Lady Bountiful mode, distributing food and blankets to them.

 

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